


My Hope

by aeriamamaduck



Series: Cyrodiil's Child [27]
Category: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Depression, F/M, POV First Person, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-19
Updated: 2015-08-19
Packaged: 2018-04-15 13:30:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4608579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeriamamaduck/pseuds/aeriamamaduck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(First person POV) Minerva finds reasons to hope after watching Martin die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Hope

I awoke wrapped in a blanket and my face stuck to a pillow, already coated with a week’s worth of salt from my tears. I searched for the refuge of sleep in vain, my body insisting it had slept enough. 

But I didn’t want to even  _think_ of waking up. Waking meant facing this new, changed world. Everyone thought it saved, the Oblivion Crisis stopped when he…

Those thoughts choked me and I added another layer of salt to my pillow. I knew he was dead, in spite of the wretched dreams where he was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching me wake up as though nothing were wrong.

Everything was wrong. Nothing felt the way it did before they took me to prison. How can anything feel right ever again when I lost someone as much a part of me as my right hand?

Martin trusted me. He always did and that made me feel like I was doing something right. Maybe not necessarily what my parents wanted me to do, but it was something honorable and  _right_.

I opened my eyes and uncurled my body, feeling my muscles pop in protest. I’d spent a week in this room, eating, sleeping, bathing, and going through the motions as fast as possible so I could go back to sleep. I didn’t want to think about what led me to this place, hiding in Chancellor Ocato’s guest room when the rest of Cyrodiil was trying to move on. I couldn’t go back to my parents’ house, even though it was finally unlocked—in the wake of Phillida’s tragic death—and had survived the siege.

I couldn’t go back there and pretend things were normal, as though Martin had never come into my life. Other people could, though. They didn’t know him. They didn’t love him, or else they too would wonder how the sun dared show its face after such a man died.

They too would blame me just as I blamed myself.

I was supposed to protect him and I could not at the end of everything. I just watched as the man I loved disappeared from my grasp, forever.

I ran my fingers through my unkempt hair, grimacing at the tangles I ran into. Great Kynareth, I was a bleeding mess.

They called me “Champion,” according to Ocato, but I certainly didn’t feel like one. He called Martin’s…ascension a victory. Yes, I could not deny that it was a victory, but I could think of twenty other endings to the entire ordeal.

Most of them involved getting to the Imperial City sooner, before the Mythic Dawn had a chance to open those gates within the city. Martin would light the dragonfires and our world would be protected from another daedric invasion for as long as he lived.

I would have been his. I would have made him happy every single day of our lives, but instead I had to stay behind while he went beyond my reach.

I dragged myself out of bed, the winter chill from outside somehow reaching me even though the window was closed. Sunlight streamed in, doing nothing for my dark thoughts. I walked towards the nightstand, where a kind maid left a pitcher of water, a porcelain bowl, and a towel for me, along with a mirror.

I forced myself to peer into the glass, the part of me that still belonged to my parents telling me that enough was enough. I couldn’t escape my reality no more than I could change the color of my eyes. I had to see myself as I would be for the rest of my life.

Alone. Strong. Broken. Repaired.

Someone who lost everything.

And there she was. Minerva Saturnius: puffy-faced and glassy eyed after a week of sleep and tears. Somehow I still found the girl who leapt into another world to save her country from monsters, and who could defend herself.

Better or worse still, I still saw the woman who loved and was loved in return. The woman who trusted herself to protect the man she adored and had chosen.

It was the woman Martin claimed to see every day we were together, the one he looked at with wonder when she returned with a sacred object or something as simple as alchemy ingredients.

That woman overcame everything, even the girl my parents raised, and she told me I was still strong. I was alive and that perhaps the worst thing was if I ever lost myself.

Pouring some water into the bowl I cleaned the tear tracks from my face. Though my face was still swollen, it felt fresher. Then I caught the reflection of something else in the mirror.

I turned to see the real thing outside my window. A pair of white stone wings rising above the city walls.

My eyes stung again and I clenched my fists, forcing myself to look.

That was it. That was all I had left of Martin, the man who had trusted me and given me a choice.

But to lose myself was a worse fate. It frightened me, and I wanted to be the Minerva who fought to save her home, the one they called “hero.”

If I wanted that, then I would have to get used to seeing that dragon every single day for the rest of my life, however long it was.

I heard the door open and turned to see the young maid opening the door. She gasped when she saw me, probably surprised that I was out of bed.

I remembered she was named Camilla, and she was about fourteen years old. “Good morning, my Lady,” she said with a curtsy. “I came to see if you’d be taking breakfast in here again.”

“…I…” I had to stop to clear my throat. My voice had roughened from disuse and weeping. “I think…I would like to take it downstairs in the kitchen with you. If you don’t mind, that is.”

I had to be strong. I clung to this girl like a lifeline, and to her kind smile.

“I do not mind at all, my Lady. Please follow me.”

I did, trying to appreciate the enormity of taking my first tentative steps into a stranger world, one step down the stairs at a time.

Then I got to the bottom step and my sight suddenly failed me, as did my hands when I tried to stop myself from falling into darkness. The semi-conscious part of my mind noted the irony.

“My Lady!” I fell into Camilla’s strong grasp, the both of us falling to our knees at the bottom of the stairs. I blinked and the dizziness began to dissipate as I regained consciousness, taking deep breaths as though I were drowning.

The world spun slowly, my limbs sluggish as I tried to get us both to our feet. Right away I remembered that time I fainted in Martin’s arms after a particularly passionate kiss, and had to close my eyes.

Soon I was back upstairs and in bed, a healer examining me with a shrewd gaze while Camilla wrung her fingers with worry.

I was slightly embarrassed. I had always boasted good health and knew my parents would have never suffered a delicate child who fainted at the drop of a hat.

The healer turned her eyes to mine and asked, “When was your last bleeding?”

An easy enough question to answer, I thought. “…About a week ago. It was very light, but that’s always been the case.”

The woman’s hands began to glow with a blue light, and she placed them over my abdomen for a few moments before her brow furrowed. The spell faded and she moved her hands away, giving me a scrutinizing look that didn’t bode well.

“…Have you used any contraceptives?”

I looked away before replying, “…A tea. I’ve been drinking it for about three months.”

“Well it appears you may be one of a few women who find that that particular method is ineffective. You are two months pregnant.”

She said it so matter-of-factly that it took me a moment to fully understand what she’d just told me. I was dizzy again but I was also frozen, staring up at the ceiling as the strong part of me tried to process what I had come to know.

Pregnant.

I was pregnant.

With Martin’s child.

I’d been pregnant for two months.

I was pregnant when I lost Martin.

I’d had no idea.

I remained silent as the healer explained that what I’d thought was my monthly bleeding was actually light spotting, somewhat common in the early stages of pregnancy and an unfortunate effect of the contraceptive. But she reassured me that the fetus was developing well, and neither it nor I were in any immediate danger. I’d most likely fainted because I hadn’t been gaining an appropriate amount of weight, along with the stress of the past few weeks.

I listened and understood, but the healer seemed to take my stare into space as a sign of shock, so she and Camilla stepped outside and closed the door, leaving me alone again.

My hands shook when I raised them to touch my flat stomach, trying to see if there really was a child. As soon as I saw my hands on my stomach my mind conjured the image of Martin’s hands over mine.

The dam I had so carefully erected broke apart and I was curled up and sobbing into my pillow again, clutching my middle and keening at the unfairness of it. How in the Void could I not have realized?! Why couldn’t I find out sooner?!

Sweet gods above, I was carrying Martin’s child…

Right away I thought things would have turned out very differently if we’d known. I could have tried to stop him by telling him that this son or daughter needed him.

Then I sobbed at my own stupidity. If Martin had known I was with child he would have, with all certainty, gone ahead with his sacrifice, if only to save me and the babe.

That was the worst part: knowing I would have lost him either way.

It just would not stop hurting. I’d lost Martin, and this child lost a father. I would never see Martin lift our son into the air. I would never see him run his fingers through our daughter’s hair.

Then I whimpered when I suddenly thought of all the times I might have lost the child. There were so many times…I clutched myself tighter, and I knew I could never let any harm come to Martin’s baby.

 _My_ baby.

Yet again I didn’t know what kind of world I was venturing into. I was no longer alone. I was someone’s mother. A child would come and he or she would depend on me for everything.

But I remembered seeing myself in that mirror, and reclaiming her again. She was still there. She was still me. For my sake, and the sake of my baby, I would not lose myself.


End file.
